On April 19, 2024, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that proposes rules regarding the exercise of discretion to determine whether to institute an Inter Partes...more
On April 16, 2024, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) regarding Director Review of Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decisions in America Invents Act (AIA)...more
United States Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Chris Coons (D-DE) introduced the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act of 2023 (the “Act”) on June 22, 2023. The Act seeks to modify and clarify “patent eligibility jurisprudence...more
On October 15, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held in InteliClear LLC v. ETC Global Holdings, Inc., that the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act (“DTSA”) requires trade secret plaintiffs to identify a...more
Our earlier Law360 guest article highlighted the rapid rise in prominence of the Waco Division of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas since U.S. District Judge Alan Albright was appointed to that court...more
On Sept. 24, 2018, Alan Albright was sworn in as a U.S. district court judge — and the only U.S. district court judge — for the Waco Division of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.
A former U.S....more
On December 20, 2019, the Precedential Opinion Panel (POP) of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued its decision in IPR2018-01039, addressing “What is required for a petitioner to establish that an asserted...more
1/13/2020
/ Administrative Appeals ,
Final Written Decisions ,
Hulu ,
Inter Partes Review (IPR) Proceeding ,
Litigation Strategies ,
Obviousness ,
Patent Trial and Appeal Board ,
Patents ,
Pleading Standards ,
Precedential Opinion ,
Preponderance of the Evidence ,
Printed Publications ,
Prior Art ,
PTAB Precedential Opinion Panel (POP) ,
Totality of Evidence
On October 3, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) completed its review of the US Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) proposed new rule regarding changing the claim construction standard applied in...more
Federal trade secret litigation can be as costly and complex as patent litigation. Unlike patent litigation, however, there has been virtually no appellate guidance on the meaning and scope of the Defend Trade Secrets Act in...more
On May 14, 2018, the Supreme Court granted WilmerHale client PNC Bank National Association's (PNC Bank) petition for writ of certiorari and vacated a decision of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit restricting the...more
5/17/2018
/ Appeals ,
Certiorari ,
Covered Business Method Proceedings ,
Inter Partes Review (IPR) Proceeding ,
Patent Assertion Entities ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
PNC ,
Post-Grant Review ,
SCOTUS ,
Vacated
No provision of the Patent Act has been more frequently litigated over the last several years than 35 U.S.C. § 101. After not having decided a § 101 case in nearly a decade, the Supreme Court issued four § 101 decisions in as...more
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Federal Circuit), the reviewing court for the decisions issued by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board), has handled over 1,000 appeals from the Board on patent trials...more
One growing trend is for clients to enter into alternative fee arrangements in which one law firm represents multiple parties who “share” fees and costs in a related matter. For example, a law firm might represent...more
There are numerous ways in which the terms of an alternative fee arrangement are documented, ranging from a simple email exchange between client and outside lawyer to lengthy addenda to the retention agreement. While no...more
Alternative fee arrangements provide great opportunities for law firms to partner with clients and strengthen relationships. However, not every matter may be appropriate for an alternative fee or in the law firm’s best...more
In this third article in our series about alternative fee arrangement proposals, we discuss five questions that outside lawyers should be able to answer for themselves before submitting an AFA proposal for a litigation matter...more
In-house attorneys routinely receive, review and compare alternative fee arrangement proposals and nearly all law firms regularly submit them, but the parties often do not follow a disciplined approach in developing a...more
An alternative fee arrangement is frequently required as part of a law firm’s response to a client’s request for proposals to handle new litigation matters. In-house attorneys routinely receive, review and compare such...more
The inter partes review estoppel provision (35 U.S.C. § 315(e)) says that a petitioner (or real party in interest) in an IPR that results in a final written decision on a patent claim may not assert validity in a U.S. Patent...more
Data shows that although transfer motion filings in the Eastern District of Texas decreased 50% year-over-year from 2014 to 2015 (from 135 to 63), the percentage of successful motions increased from 34% to 43%. According to...more
The US Patent and Trademark Office has announced amendments to the Rules of Practice for Trials Before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that will take effect on May 2, 2016. The amendments generally adopt the rules proposed...more
4/8/2016
/ Additional Discovery ,
Claim Construction ,
Duty of Candor ,
Expert Testimony ,
Final Rules ,
Motion to Amend ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent Owner Preliminary Response ,
Patent Trial and Appeal Board ,
Real Party in Interest ,
USPTO
Summaries of Recent Precedential and Informative Appellate Opinions -
Trademark Opinions -
Owners of Foreign Marks May Sue Under Lanham Act Without Using Marks in the US: Belmora LLC v. Bayer Consumer Care AG,...more
4/5/2016
/ Amazon ,
Athletes ,
Bayer ,
Canada ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Copyright Litigation ,
Country of Origin ,
DC Comics ,
Dilution ,
Forum Non Conveniens ,
Lanham Act ,
Likelihood of Confusion ,
NFL ,
Petition for Writ of Certiorari ,
Popular ,
Right of Publicity ,
SCOTUS ,
Sex Trafficking ,
Tariff Act of 1930 ,
Trademark Infringement ,
Trademark Litigation ,
Trademark Trial and Appeal Board
Ninth Circuit Amends "Dancing Baby" Decision: Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., Nos. 13-16106, 13-16107 (9th Cir. Mar. 17, 2016) -
On March 17, 2016, the Ninth Circuit amended its prior opinion in the famed "Dancing Baby"...more
Summaries of Recent Precedential and Informative Appellate Opinions -
January 29 – February 26
Copyright Opinions -
CBS Broadcasting Inc. v. FilmOn.com, Inc., No. 14-3123-cv (2d Cir. Feb 16, 2016): Second...more
The author reviews a recent unusual PTAB scenario—the inter partes review petitioner successfully stopped an IPR proceeding, which the patent owner wanted to continue, before the board reached a trial-institution decision—and...more